We are glad to learn from Mr Smith, that there is a plan on foot for the removal of the confined, dirty, and unwholesome district between Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, now one of the vilest parts of the metropolis, the favourite abode of thieves, beggars, pawnbrokers, and gin-sellers. The streets adjacent to the palace have at no time been of the most spacious or respectable description, although Pimlico is vastly improved from what it was in the days of Ben Jonson, who uses the name to express all that was lowest and most disreputable. In his play of _The Alchymist_, he says, "Gallants, men and women, and of all sorts, tag-rag and bob-tail, have been seen to flock here in threaves, these ten weeks, as to a second Hoxton or Pimlico." And again, "besides other gallants, oysterwomen, sailors' wives, tobacco-men--another Pimlico." _Apropos_ of the gin-palaces which have replaced the old-fashioned public-houses that abounded some twenty years ago in Westminster, Mr Smith makes a digression on the subject of drunkenness, and quotes some curious particulars from an old treatise, called _The London and Country Brewer_. "Our drunkenness, as a national vice," says the writer, "takes its date from the restoration of Charles the Second, or a few years later." It may be questioned whether drunkenness was not pretty well established as an English vice long before the period here referred to. We have the authority of various writers, however, for its having greatly increased about the time of the Stuarts' restoration. "A spirit of extravagant joy," says Burnet, in his _History of his own Times_, "spread over the nation. All ended in entertainments and drunkenness, which overrun the three kingdoms to such a degree, that it very much corrupted all their morals. Under the colour of drinking the King's health, there were great disorders, and much riot every where." This was no unnatural reaction after the stern austerity of the Protectorate. "As to the materials, (of drunkenness,") continues _The Brewer_, "beer and ale were considerable articles; they went a great way in the work at first, but were far from being sufficient; and then strong waters came into play. The occasion was this: In the Dutch wars it had been observed that the captains of the Hollanders' men-of-war, when they were about to engage with our ships, usually set a hogshead of brandy abroach afore the mast, and bid the men drink _sustick_, that they might fight _lustick_; and our poor seamen felt the force of the brandy to their cost. We were not long behind them; but suddenly after the war we began to abound in strong-water shops." Even the chandlers and the barber-surgeons kept stores of spirituous compounds, for the most part of exceeding bad quality, but sweetened and spiced, and temptingly displayed in rows of glass bottles, under Latin names of imposing sound. Aniseed-water was the favourite dram; until the French, finding out the newly-acquired taste of